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Board: New game console recognizes physical pieces, with an open SDK

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Re: Board: New game console recognizes physical pieces, with an open SDK

#131

Post by sleepybrett »

qwertytyyuu wrote: post #73
october8140 wrote: post #55

There is a huge demand for an off the shelf device like this for TTRPGs. There are entire companies making animated maps that are predicated on people laying a TV on its back on a table and building a custom case for it. I imagine they would all love to sell their maps on a dedicated off the shelf product.

its too small to work for TTRPGs at the moment but if we could get the capacitive pattern tech and expand that to work on digitiser layer on a tv sized screen, i would be really cool.

It depends on the size of your table, of course. The area looks no bigger than game's i've played that use a battlemap or like a little miniature scene with dungeon tiles. Bigger is certainly better as we age or if the physical table you play on is huge though.

Re: Board: New game console recognizes physical pieces, with an open SDK

#132

Post by cush »

jkhdigital wrote: post #28

I can tell this is much more than just “Tabletop Simulator on a tablet”, although at $500 you’re likely to get a lot of attention from the Twilight Imperium and Gloomhaven crowd. I know more than a few childless people in my local gaming circle who would drop a half-large on accessories that simplify game execution. But clearly this product isn’t about making existing board games easier to set-up/play/clean-up. I thi…

Board seems cool, but it's not a way to consolidate your collection of euro, war or 4x games into one surface. The appeal to me is making new experiences involving physics, exciting visuals, and sound. Sure maybe you can replicate some smaller abstract games, but this would make playing TI or Gloomhaven absolutely miserable. People that don't play complex games assume that the scale and number of components is a burden, but they're carefully designed to give the ability for the players to make sense of and organize the scale and complexity of the game itself (especially in TI)

Re: Board: New game console recognizes physical pieces, with an open SDK

#133

Post by whitehexagon »

fhcbix wrote: post #84
whitehexagon wrote: post #78

This looks like a perfect match for the music synth ReacTable, something that never ported well to ipad because of the lack of physical pieces. But my concern would be that this becomes just another Ad platform, but targeted at kids. For me a board-game is offline time. So I would picture this with no WiFi and SD card based games. Which could still be profitable via an other-device app store. But would also avoid tem…

> For me a board-game is offline time. That's fair but not universal. Plenty of communities exist around playing board games online and often that's the only way to meet players of equal strength or run large tournaments.

Sure, but then maybe it should be two models; one with WiFi for adult gaming, and one that is 100% offline safe model for kids to play with. With the added advantage that the SD card based games can be managed by parents to help manage 'game time'.

Re: Board: New game console recognizes physical pieces, with an open SDK

#134

Post by whitehexagon »

fwip wrote: post #123
whitehexagon wrote: post #78

This looks like a perfect match for the music synth ReacTable, something that never ported well to ipad because of the lack of physical pieces. But my concern would be that this becomes just another Ad platform, but targeted at kids. For me a board-game is offline time. So I would picture this with no WiFi and SD card based games. Which could still be profitable via an other-device app store. But would also avoid tem…

If you didn't see it, the FAQ partially addresses your wifi concerns: "Does Board need WiFi or batteries? Board plugs into the wall, no batteries required. WiFi is only needed when you want to download new games. Once it’s powered on, you’re ready to play." Obviously they could add ads later, but it's a little reassuring to know that it's designed from the outset to work without an always-on connection.

Not sure. As a developer I like the concept, but the more I read of the legal, the more concerns I have. It reads more like an online tablet, but without service guarantees. Maybe some of the legal was for the website, it wasn't clear to me. But there was also mention of social media, complete game usage collection, and phone and email direct marketing, defaulted to opt-in.

Re: Board: New game console recognizes physical pieces, with an open SDK

#135

Post by galagawinkle489 »

sirwhinesalot wrote: post #110
galagawinkle489 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Book opening is fine. Post-it notes exist. You can easily open the book to the right spell. Just write down the names of the spells you have chosen to memorise for the day on a piece of paper and cross them off when you cast them. As for rules lawyering... That is just playing by the rules. That is how the game is meant to be played: rules as written except as modified by the group by agreement. Rules lawyering just…

It's a horrible experience. I can only suggest you try out TTRPGs that don't need this. I haven't tried it yet but Daggerheart seems to avoid the problem by providing spell cards. You can do the same in DnD and I suggest doing so, but it's not assumed by the game's design. All the old-school OSR inspired stuff doesn't have this problem. You should not need to repeatedly and consistently open the rule-book to play wha…

It isn't a board game. Maybe that's your problem. It is a roleplaying game. The mechanics of spellcasting aren't very important because combat just isn't very important. Most people don't even play with a grid and figurines (at least traditionally).

You haven't explained why it is a "horrible experience" to look at a photocopied piece of paper or to open a book to a post-it note bookmark. I do these things every day with other books, for things like work.

Are you just bad at reading books or unfamiliar with how to use them?

Re: Board: New game console recognizes physical pieces, with an open SDK

#136

Post by galagawinkle489 »

reactordev wrote: post #128
galagawinkle489 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Referring to books as "dead trees" is such a pathetic thought-terminating cliché. If you don't want to cart books around that's fine but you can easily play the game with only the basic three (and players just need one). If you are using a book just for a spell or an item or two you can just photocopy the page.

Sir, I’m in the middle of a 20 year campaign…

[flagged]

Re: Board: New game console recognizes physical pieces, with an open SDK

#137

Post by EmilStenstrom »

nicoles wrote: post #127
EmilStenstrom wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@nicoles: Understand. Is this just about shipping? Or don't you own the games on the platform, so they can't be shipped overseas?

Every country has different requirements and regulations, it's unfortunately not just about shipping. We own all the games, but are focused on the USA for right now.

Happy to be put on a sendout list if/when this changes.

Re: Board: New game console recognizes physical pieces, with an open SDK

#139

Post by ryanmeasel »

pjmlp wrote: post #94
Hydraulix989 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But perhaps the first well-executed?

All the best to them, this remains to be seen, including how the SDK tooling will look like. I consider Microsoft's one great, given its C# and .NET based SDK, instead of yet again C and C++.

The Unity SDK is C# and slots right into the typical Unity patterns for touch input.

Two contact types are provided: Finger – Representing a single touch point, e.g, a finger Glyph – Representing a tangible object

For each contact, you get ID, Position, and Phase. For Glyphs, you also get orientation and touched status, as in the system knows whether the object is being touched or not. There tunable parameters for the tracking system as well.

For event systems (e.g., menus, etc), BoardUIInputModule in provided in place of Unity's default InputSystemUIInputModule.

Please reach out if interested to develop: https://board.fun/pages/developers

Re: Board: New game console recognizes physical pieces, with an open SDK

#140

Post by ryanmeasel »

moring wrote: post #113
pstuart wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they have a conductive pattern built into the surface using specialized materials and a manufacturing technique we developed in house. Would this be something a home 3D printer could do? I'm not a maker but I could see the value of others being able to quickly build a universe of playing pieces if that was possible.

It would sound more logical to me to buy a stack of pre-made patterns (e.g. coin or cube form-factor) and glue them into a like-shaped slot in a 3d-printed playing piece. Assuming that is possible, and you'd still have to make a conductive path to the person touching the piece, but this would be much easier than printing the pattern yourself.

Sure, a modular system would work as you suggest.

It is not a requirement to provide a conductive path to the person though. The patterns (glyphs as we call them) are detected and tracked regardless of whether they are being touched. However, when there is a conductive path to the person, the system detects that which provides another input vector.

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